Galeanthropy
by DreadNot
Summary: A return to Volutions in which Anders learns more about both Fenris and Ser Pounce-a-lot than he expected, and vice versa. After magic chains, talking darkspawn, age regression, malevolent magisters, and close encounters of the drugged kind, why not a body swap? Volutions 9.
1. Chapter 1

At a guess, the statuette was carved from a dark-hued amber. It was small enough to fit in Hawke's palm with room for him to close his fingers over it if he wanted to, but his hand was open and extended to Fenris so he could examine the small orange cat curled up asleep in his palm.

"What do you think?" he said. "Would Anders love it or would he love it?"

Before Fenris could answer, Hawke tossed the statuette to him and turned back to rummaging through the stone coffer he'd pulled it out of, along with a handful of gold coins, a toy boat with a broken mast, and a pair of torn trousers that couldn't possibly have been useful to the desire demon they'd recently killed for the privilege of rifling through its junk.

Demons and Hawke – hoarders one and all.

"Give it to Anders," Hawke said dismissively over his shoulder while he unsheathed a dagger he'd found at the bottom of the chest and scrutinized its fuller. "Tell him it was your idea."

. . .

Fenris brought the statuette back to Kirkwall, tucked into a belt pouch as a concession to Hawke rather than a deliberate gift for Anders. He and Anders weren't… together like that. They didn't call each other pet names or give each other gifts – the key to Fenris' estate notwithstanding – and they weren't a couple. Half the time Fenris still balked at calling him a friend.

Trudging up the stairs behind Hawke and automatically making the turn down the hall to the guest room where Anders lived, Fenris wasn't sure what they were.

"Messere Fenris." Orana's diffident call turned him back around to see her at the foot of the stairs. "Messere Anders is still at his clinic if you need him."

Nothing he did could get her to stop calling him Messere, and he'd just about given up on it. He raised a hand in acknowledgment and continued down the hall to Anders' door. Whatever he and Anders were, everyone knew that they were that whatever together.

Sometimes that chafed, rubbed raw spots that made him growl and want to lash out. Today he was too weary for growling, aching down to the bone the way he did when he had been forced to call on the lyrium's power to protect himself and others for too long and too hard. He never told anyone of that ache, never let on what it cost him to use the marks in his skin, and never hinted that since Anders had gouged a piece out of the matrix one hot summer night under Darktown, the song of the lyrium in his skin had slowly been turning to dissonance.

Those were his burdens to bear, and he would never tell. Not when he knew his friends – if they knew the cost, they would try to protect him from himself.

He pushed open the door to Anders' room to find it as empty as Orana had warned him.

Almost as empty.

Ser Pounce-a-lot was stretched out on Anders' bed, somehow taking up almost the entire mattress. He stretched lazily and offered Fenris a challenging stare in greeting, never taking his eyes off the elf as he closed the door and hung his sword on the pegs that Anders had put in the wall after Fenris started spending the night a bit more regularly.

"I'm not talking to you," Fenris told the cat. "If you want conversation, you'll have to wait for Anders to get home."

Ser Pounce-a-lot blinked once and stretched out even more, claws pushing out at the tips of his paws for a moment in some silent commentary before he relaxed and the sharp little nails retreated out of sight again.

Fenris stripped off his armor and sat down on the edge of the bed where Pounce had left him a little space. "I brought something for Anders."

So much for no conversation. There was something about the cat that almost demanded recognition, as though he could understand at least as much as Hawke's mabari, if not more. That was saying something; Brutal played a mean hand of diamondback. He set the statuette on the bed where the cat could see it and watched as he deigned to stand up and come closer to sniff at it.

His tail twitched hard when he pulled back, mouth open and nose wrinkled as though he'd smelled something unpleasant. Apparently not so unpleasant that he wasn't going to rub himself all over it. Fenris watched, bemused, as Pounce went from apparent distaste to practically rolling on top of the little statuette, butting it with his head, rubbing the edge of his jaw on it, and finally swatting it with his paw before he sat himself down and looked expectantly at Fenris.

"I can't tell if that means you approve or not." He took the statuette and looked around for somewhere to put it that Anders would see straight away. The bedside table was cluttered with books and papers, pens and ink pots, and pages covered in Anders' scrawled screeds on mage rights. The statuette would be lost there, if he could even find space for it.

He settled for putting it on the thin ledge of the headboard where the orange of the amber against the dark wood should draw Anders' eye when he returned. Then he turned his attention back to Ser Pounce-a-lot.

"I'm lying down here. You can either share or I'll lie on top of you and tell Anders you started it."

And somehow, despite his fatigue, he found the corners of his mouth tugging upward a little. He'd lie down and sleep somewhere he felt safe, let the ache in his skin and bones settle into its usual background murmur, and let Anders wake him for a meal and exchanged stories of demonslaying and Darktown medicine.

Pounce gave him a long, considering look, blinked slowly, and moved just enough to give Fenris room and time to lie down before the cat curled himself against Fenris' chest and started to purr.

Take it or leave it, the cat's attitude said.

Fenris took it, and fell asleep to the soft sounds of purring.

. . .

When Anders got home from a day spent not just in Darktown, but chasing down supplies in Lowtown, he was in a grim mood that lightened just a little when Orana informed him that Messere Fenris was upstairs.

"Back from the Wounded Coast?" He found a smile for Orana as he took the stairs two at a time. "Was he in one piece or carrying a missing limb?"

"One piece, Messere." Orana gave no sign that she found the question odd or even hyperbolic. "Would you like me to bring dinner upstairs tonight?"

"Don't trouble yourself." He stopped, thinking about it at the head of the stairs, and added, "But I wouldn't complain if you left a few sandwiches outside my door later, you know the ones you make with mutton and some of that Fereldan cheese?"

Orana assured him that she knew which one and that it would be no trouble at all, but he barely heard her as long strides carried him away from the stairs toward the only place in Kirkwall where he could find some peace from the city's demands, if not from the constant murmur of outrage in his own head.

For all his pleasant expectation, he still opened his bedroom door cautiously, not wanting to startle Fenris or bump Ser Pounce-a-lot if he was sleeping against the door, as he sometimes did. The sight that greeted him startled a real smile from him. Fenris and Pounce were napping and _cuddling_. He had to cover his mouth to keep from awwing and waking them.

The gentle click of the door latch catching when Anders closed the door woke Fenris before Pounce. He blinked owlishly at Anders and watched him without speaking as Anders set his staff in its corner.

"Long run on the Wounded Coast?" Anders asked as he approached the bed.

His words woke Ser Pounce-a-lot and from there the calm exploded into nothing he'd have expected in his bedroom. Not since his Denerim days, at least.

Pounce took one look at Anders, twisted to see Fenris lying beside him, and lashed out with his claws to drag bleeding furrows down Fenris' cheek.

Fenris screeched, shoved himself backwards, and the next thing Anders knew, there was an elf scrabbling to get under his bed while his cat snarled and hissed from the center of his mattress, back arched, tail fluffed, and every hair down his spine bristling up.

So… no sex, then?


	2. Chapter 2

Anders had been expecting many things when Orana had told him that Fenris was in his room – most of those expectations had been fairly quiet in one respect or another, be they reading together, sleeping, or even the faintly hoped for sex. This? This had not been on his wishful itinerary as he'd walked up the stairs.

Worst, he thought, as he gaped at the unexpected scene that had erupted in his bedroom, was that neither Fenris nor Ser Pounce-a-lot were behaving in any way as he would expect them to. Fenris and Ser Pounce-a-lot had reached some kind of agreement when it came to sharing Anders' space. Mostly the agreement was that it was Ser Pounce-a-lot's space unless the clothes were coming off.

He started with a scolding. "Ser Pounce-a-lot, no!"

He scooped the hissing cat off the bed and got a bloodied hand for his trouble while his usually calm and loving cat snarled and spat as though Anders were a Hurlock instead of his beloved doting human.

All while Fenris was on a dust bunny hunt, for all Anders could guess.

"That's it!" He grabbed Pounce by the scruff as the cat dug his claws into one of Anders' coat sleeves. His first order of business was the bloody task of getting his cat somewhere he couldn't hurt anyone. Then Anders would have some breathing space to check on Fenris.

"I hope Hawke's not planning on a bath soon," he muttered to himself as he grimly held onto Pounce's scruff while his cat rabbit-kicked his sleeve and managed to put a few more bloody scratches into his hand.

He got his door open with only a little more blood spilled and gave thanks that the bathroom door wasn't latched as he carried his furious feline inside and deposited him in the empty tub to start the careful task of getting Ser Pounce-a-lot's claws out of his sleeve without more injury.

The key here was taking advantage of the tub's porcelain sides to give the cat nothing to get a purchase on with his claws once Anders freed himself and hightailed it out of the room. From the other side of the firmly closed door, he had time for a single deep breath before a small weight thumped against the bathroom door and startled him into motion.

Obviously something was very wrong here, but he couldn't begin to guess what without more information. That meant Fenris, since Ser Pounce-a-lot couldn't very well talk to him.

Not for lack of trying on Anders' part….

Fenris hadn't emerged from under the bed by the time Anders returned. "Brilliant. Just… Brilliant." He huffed and got down on his stomach to peer under the bed.

Fenris stared back at him with eyes that flashed golden like a cat's when they caught the light just right. It wasn't the first time Anders had seen it, but there was something disconcerting about the sight just then.

"If you're done with your dust bunny search and destroy mission…" He left the sentence to hang and watched Fenris expectantly until, after a long, slow blink, Fenris slid out from under the bed on Anders' side and crawled toward him as Anders pushed himself up to kneel on the floor.

"Do you want to tell me what––" Fenris didn't stop once he was out from under the bed. He kept coming until he had quite literally crawled into Anders' lap and kept going to push Anders into a graceless sprawl while Fenris nuzzled his face, not kissing, just rubbing his cheek and jaw against Anders'.

Obviously complete sentences weren't going to be a thing yet.

"Fen––" he ended up with a mouthful of white hair and enough was just bloody enough. He shoved Fenris back and off of him. "Stop!"

Fenris fell beside him, braced on an elbow to keep from ending up entirely on his back, and the look he gave Anders was both shocked and accusatory, but Anders was having none of it. "What did I walk in on? I thought you and Ser Pounce-a-lot were getting on, and then he's turned into something that's all sharp bits and teeth and you're hiding under the–-" An idea niggled at him that was too absurd to allow beyond the niggling stage. "-under the bed."

Fenris blinked at him once before he looked down at himself and stretched an arm out to scrutinize it as though he'd never seen it before.

That niggle wasn't stopping.

He turned his hand over to look at it palm up, spreading his fingers wide, then closed them in a fist before he turned his attention back to Anders and said in a tone that, to Anders' ear, was almost a whine, "I don't like this body. It hurts."

Niggle or not, Anders was once again taken entirely by surprise. He wasn't sure what response he'd been expecting, but honesty from Fenris about something he usually avoided admitting in any way wasn't it, and whining? Not on the worst day. Ser Pounce-a-lot's reaction earlier was more like what Anders would expect from Fenris.

Justice took over for the niggle and pushed at him that there was something more wrong than Fenris' tone of voice.

"I know, I know," Anders muttered to the voice in his head as he pushed himself up onto hands and knees to get closer and examine Fenris for any sign that there was more physically wrong with him than just a few scratches on his pretty face.

"Did you crack your head in your rush to get away from the ferocious kitty cat?" He knelt and held up a single finger a foot in front of Fenris' face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

He so wanted a knock on the head to be the explanation. Too bad Fenris' skull was too thick for that to be the easy answer.

Was the fact that Fenris' response was to swat at his finger better or worse?

He didn't have time to decide before Fenris was making a wobbly attempt to get to his feet and Anders had to rise with him or see him fall. He offered a hand that Fenris took as a start before clinging to Anders' entire arm to support himself once he was upright.

Back to head injury as a working theory that still failed to take into account how Fenris' hypothetical head injury could result in Ser Pounce-a-lot acting in a manner Anders had only ever seen in the Deep Roads – and only then with excellent reason.

"I want you to lie down and let me check you out." Instead of getting on the bed, Fenris started for the door, pulling Anders along with him.

"I want out." And there was that strange sort of almost whine again. What was wrong with him? He pulled with the strength of a man who regularly wielded huge lengths of metal like toothpicks, and Anders was stuck going with him or turning this into a wrestling match. Anders went.

With Fenris clinging to his arm with both hands, Anders opened the door and waited while Fenris' sudden need to leave the room turned into indecision. He could hear Ser Pounce-a-lot yowling from the bathroom and the scratch of claws on wood that he just knew he was going to owe Hawke for, and Fenris just stood there in the doorway, not moving.

"Where are we going?" he asked, partly to nudge Fenris into motion, which seemed to work for long enough to get Fenris out into the hall, but once Anders had closed the bedroom door, once again Fenris just stood there.

"Fenris?"

Not a blink from Fenris, just a narrow considering stare now aimed at the closed bedroom door. After a moment, he said, "I want in."

"What?"

"I want in." Faster, more impatient, Fenris stared at the door and gave Anders' arm a little tug. "In."

Anders scraped his nails through the stubble on his jaw and sighed. "Maker watch over fools and elves." He reached out and opened the door. "Lie down, I want to give you a thorough check, and no complaining when I use magic to do it."

Fenris pulled him back inside, waited for Anders to close the door, and…

"I want out."

…

Five minutes later the lyrium-marked elf was safely behind a locked bedroom door and Anders was crouched by the closed bathroom door waiting for a break in the nonstop pissed off cat symphony coming from the other side of the mercifully thick wood. When it came, Anders leaned in and very cautiously said, "Fenris? Is that you?"

The door rattled a little in its frame with the weight of a small body hitting it.

"Fenris?" He wasn't opening the door just to put his face in a feline meat grinder just yet. "Fenris, if that's you, just… meow once."

Silence.

Anders waited, ears straining for some sound until finally he heard a single sound – the most irritated meow he'd ever heard come from his cat.

He opened the door and looked straight into wide, green cat eyes. "Fenris."

Fenris stalked out of the bathroom and walked down the hall with his head and tail held high, not looking at Anders once he'd confirmed his identity.

Anders rolled his eyes skyward. "Remember what I said about fools and elves?" he said to the ceiling. "Add apostates to that, please and thank you."

Fenris would probably tell him that the Maker didn't need to add apostates when Anders already fell into the first category.


	3. Chapter 3

Fenris was as furious at Anders as he'd ever been, and short of more bloodletting, the only way he had to express it was the way his tail – his _tail,_ he was never going to hear the end of this – lashed behind him as he walked away from the fool mage. Anders had locked him in the bathroom and left his body unsupervised and occupied by Maker knew what.

Obviously he needed to get someone smar– Maybe not smarter. Sane– Right, maybe not saner. He needed Hawke.

He managed to restrain himself from running to Hawke's room – negotiating four feet was harder than it looked and he was not going to give Anders something to laugh about when he tumbled ass over ears because he couldn't coordinate everything at once. He gave Anders' bedroom door a glare on his way by and kept going, ignoring the questions Anders was throwing at him as though he could somehow answer them.

"Where are you going?"

Not listening.

"Fenris, what happened?"

How was he supposed to answer that? Through the magic of interpretive dance perhaps? He kept walking.

"How did you and Ser Pounce-a-lot switch bodies?"

Right, what? He stopped and turned around to give Anders a disbelieving stare. The cat?

Maker help them all, especially fools and mages and fool mages.

His whiskers twitched and his ears flattened before he spurred himself back into motion with even more purpose in his need to get Hawke in on this. Brutal came halfway up the stairs as Fenris led his wayward mage out onto the landing and retreated when Fenris gave a ferocious hiss that the mabari startled from somewhere in his body's reflexes. On the bright side, Ser Pounce-a-lot had Brutal well trained.

He glared at Brutal until he was out of sight, then went to Hawke's door to paw at it.

Anders caught his intent and knocked for him. "Hawke."

No answer but he could hear murmuring from the other side of the door.

Fenris pawed again and Anders knocked a little louder. "Hawke, we need you out here."

There was a thump against the door and Isabela's giggle. "Come back later. Hawke's getting a little tied up right now."

Hawke sounded muffled, but the laughter in his "Isabela!" was unmistakable.

"Isabela, please." Anders tried again.

The door remained firmly closed and something thumped against the door before Isabela called, "Is someone dying?"

Anders swiped a hand over his eyes. "No."

Hawke this time, "Is anything on fire?"

"No…"

Isabela added, "Will anyone die if this waits two, no, make it three hours?"

Anders met Fenris' stare and shrugged uncomfortably. "Probably not," he admitted.

In unison, "Then come back later!"

Fenris meowed irritably and stalked back back to Anders' bedroom. And to think, he'd been happy for Hawke and Isabela when they'd reconciled.

Okay, there was a strong possibility that "happy" was an overstatement of Fenris' opinion, but in general Hawke was happier with her around than when she'd been gone, and for that Fenris had been happy.

Had been. Just that moment he wasn't happy with a single thing in his life, including the fact that he had to look so very far up to glare at Anders until he opened the door and let Fenris see just what Ser Pounce-a-lot was doing with his body.

Fenris was greeted by the sight of his ass in skin tight leather because the rest of his body was leaned out the bedroom window while Ser Pounce-a-lot talked to someone, which was troubling for the fact that they were on the second floor.

Fenris took several cautious steps into the room and cocked his head to listen to what the cat in his body was saying.

"...going to get you. I'm going to come out there and I'm going to eat you and you. You too, I'm going to catch you and play with you and…"

Anders crossed the room to grab the back of Fenris' tunic and haul his body back into the room.

"What are you doing?"

Ser Pounce-a-lot came with the pull and gave Anders a scowl for the manhandling. "Stop that! I was talking to the birds."

He pulled himself free with a huff of annoyance and flounced over to the bed to drop onto it, still reproachfully glaring at Anders.

Fenris found himself both horrified and fascinated to see his body from this perspective. He cautiously moved closer to the bed, and after a moment's hesitation, gathered his legs under himself to spring up onto the bed.

Maybe he should have thought that through a little better. By rights, as poorly as that went, including clawing at the blanket and leaving a tear in the cloth, he should have ended up on his back on the floor, but after several seconds of struggling, he found himself with all four feet firmly planted on the floor.

Right up until Anders came and scooped him up. He barely had time to hiss and writhe in Anders' hold before he was deposited on top of the blankets and he and his body were face to face.

Ser Pounce-a-lot gave him a long, steady look before he shifted his gaze to Anders.

"You can't just hang out the window like that. You aren't a cat right now and I––"

Ser Pounce-a-lot didn't look away, but he snaked out one hand and knocked one of Anders' sheaves of paper off the nightstand and onto the floor.

When Anders sputtered and kept up his scolding, Ser Pounce-a-lot shifted his eyes back down to Fenris. Again his hand snaked out, and his lips pulled up just a little at the corners as his hand settled just over one of Anders' ink pots.

Anders stopped scolding. "You wouldn't…"

Ser Pounce-a-lot kept his attention on Fenris as though waiting for some signal. Fenris did nothing for a moment before he dipped his head and Ser Pounce-a-lot knocked the ink pot onto the floor.

Lock him the bathroom, would he?

…

Twenty minutes later, after Anders finished cleaning up the ink, he relocated them downstairs to Hawke's library. Fenris found himself pacing the room, hating how everything towered over him. He couldn't see, he felt small and helpless, climbing hadn't gone all that well for him, and Ser Pounce-a-lot seemed to be having a fine old time in his body.

He settled himself in front of the fireplace and meowed until Anders finally came and started a fire for him. Only then, as the heat sank into his fur, did he start to let himself appreciate anything about his situation.

For one thing, this was the first time in his life – that he could remember at least – that he didn't hurt. Sure, this body was limited, and having to look up so much was a strain on his neck, but he didn't hurt. He found the perfect distance from the fire and curled up into a small ball to watch Anders poking around at Hawke's shelves as though he'd find some hidden magical tome he hadn't noticed before.

Granted, this was Hawke's library; you could never be sure what might turn up in here.

Ser Pounce-a-lot, meanwhile, seemed content to wander around and look at things on higher shelves that he'd clearly never been able to get to before. Occasionally he'd ask Anders a question about something or take it down only to have Anders take it from him and put it back, but he had little more insight to how they'd ended up like this than Fenris.

Slowly, Fenris' eyes closed to slits, through which he watched the two of them – mostly Ser Pounce-a-lot – and turned over the questions of how this had happened, how they were going to fix it, and how in the world had Pounce learned to speak the common tongue? If Fenris encountered other cats, would he be able to speak Cat?

Did cats have a language?

With such weighty questions on his mind, he dozed off curled in front of the fire.


	4. Chapter 4

"Look at him, he's so cute."

Anders had glanced up from a book about the great cats of the Donarks – useless for his purposes, by the way – and caught sight of Fenris asleep by the fire. His heart gave a little happy clench the way it did every time he saw Ser Pounce-a-lot, then his stomach gave a little twist as he remembered that the orange tabby by the fire was the man he was in some kind of a relationship with. Nothing was ever easy, was it?

 _This is why you shouldn't have let yourself get close to him._

Was that his thought? Sometimes he couldn't distinguish Justice from the little voice that had always been in his head. That distinction always seemed to be vaguer the longer they were in Kirkwall. If the city and its mages didn't need him, he'd have run long ago just to keep some sense of self.

"Thank you." Ser Pounce-a-lot had mastered spoken sarcasm with troubling ease, but it pulled Anders away from darker thoughts to look at his cat in his lover's body.

"Should I apologize for that?" He snapped the book closed and turned it in his hands. "It's not my fault that you two had this accident. I'd know if I'd been mucking about in magic that might swap my cat and my––"

"Your boyfriend?" Ser Pounce-a-lot finished for him.

"No!" Anders shook his head a little too quickly. "Don't be––"

Ser Pounce-a-lot cut him off. "You two can be so stupid sometimes. You think I can't see it? I see _everything."_ He took the book from Anders' hands and tossed it in the vague direction of a table. It missed and thumped against a wall and Fenris startled with a hiss. He got halfway to his feet, blinked sleepily at the room with his ears flattened against his head, and slowly subsided when he saw Anders gawping at him and Ser Pounce-a-lot giving him a narrow-eyed look.

"Go back to sleep," Ser Pounce-a-lot murmured, and for a wonder, Fenris did.

Anders wasn't sure which part to boggle over more – that his cat had so much to say, or that he'd told Fenris to go to sleep and he had. Who could tell Fenris anything?

Ser Pounce-a-lot, apparently. Once Fenris' eyes had slid completely closed again, he reached over and grabbed Anders' wrist and tugged at him. "Chair. Sit down."

"No, wait." Anders twisted his wrist. Ser Pounce-a-lot didn't understand thumbs yet; a little pressure and Anders had his hand back. "How did you get him to go back to sleep?"

Pounce sighed, and his irritation looked utterly natural on Fenris' face. "I didn't. It's nap time and he's by the fire. I'm stuck with his body's problems and _he_ gets to take my naps. Not fair."

Instead of grabbing Anders again, he walked over to the chair and stood next to it, looking pointedly at him. How many times had Anders seen him do exactly that in their time together? He'd been small and orange at the time, but he'd trained Anders well enough that he knew he was supposed to sit down.

He didn't expect Pounce to follow his sitting with climbing onto his lap for petting. That would be ridiculous when he was currently inhabiting a full grown elf's body.

He retrieved the book Pounce had thrown and reshelved it, just to show his cat he couldn't boss him around, then he sat down, which kind of ruined the no bossing around message.

Oddly, a breath of Justice's amusement blew through his mind along with a memory of a conversation they'd had about the spirit's lack of understanding of Anders' relationship with his cat, who had been a kitten at the time. _To enslave another creature does not seem right._

Right, see who had enslaved whom, hmmm?

He was almost smiling when Ser Pounce-a-lot flopped down across his lap and did an admirable job of crushing Fenris' hip into Anders' crotch. Anders couldn't even breathe for a moment, and vomiting might have been a viable option if he wouldn't have ended up throwing up on Fenris' body. Getting Pounce to take a bath didn't seem worth it, but it was a near miss.

He had to put his head back and find his breath enough to focus on breathing until the pain receded and his last meal stopped trying to make a break for freedom.

"Don't… do that," he managed with a wheeze. "I like those bits."

"You think I don't know that?" Pounce said wryly. "With the things I've seen?"

While Anders struggled for a response that wasn't oh shit, why did I masturbate with him in the same room? Pounce put his arms around Anders' neck and nuzzled his jaw affectionately. "You should pet me," he murmured against Anders' ear. "If you do, I'll tell you all the spots that feel good."

"Whoa, no. No, no, no." Anders pulled his head back and thumped it against the back of the chair, but Pounce had Fenris' strong arms to keep him from struggling free. "That's not okay. That's not your body!"

"Just petting," Pounce said impatiently, and this time he bumped his forehead against Anders' in a gesture that Anders knew so very well from times when his cat really wanted some affection. "Just pet me, this body hurts and I don't like it. Pet me."

That was the second time that Ser Pounce-a-lot had told him that Fenris' body hurt. This time it sank in, and Anders didn't know what to do with it. Fenris was particular about where and how Anders touched him, but he'd never said it was a matter of pain.

Tentatively, Anders raised a hand to comb his fingers through Ser Pounce-a-lot's hair. "What kind of hurt? Where does it hurt?"

Ser Pounce-a-lot turned his face up into the touch and half closed his eyes, and for the first time, Anders could see his cat there in the angle of his head and the expression of unselfconscious bliss that was unfamiliar on Fenris' face but familiar nonetheless. He turned his head and pushed into the touch to guide Anders in petting his hair and face.

"Where does it hurt?" he asked again.

Ser Pounce-a-lot didn't lose his blissed out smile, but the answer hurt Anders even as he kept petting him. "Everywhere."

It got worse when Ser Pounce-a-lot put his hand on his hip where Anders had gouged a piece of lyrium out to keep them both from torture and possession. "It's worst here."

...

Hawke was feeling good. Loose-limbed, sated, and maybe a little sore, but a few hours with Isabela could do that to a guy.

He still needed a long, hot soak to ease some sore muscles, but first he was going to find out what was so important that Anders had come knocking on his door when he and Isabela were just getting to the good part.

That, and a sandwich. He really wanted a sandwich and he'd promised Isabela he'd bring her one if she got the bath started.

Anders wasn't in his room, but Hawke could follow the sound of voices downstairs where Brutal lay in the main hall with his head on his paws, staring at the library door.

"Is Anders in there?" he asked his mabari. The dog chuffed an affirmative.

"With Fenris?"

Brutal whined in a way that usually meant he had a bad diamondback hand and scooted a few inches backward.

"Is that a no?"

But that was all the answer he was going to get from Brutal. Whatever was going on in the library, at least the murmur of voices sounded calm. Maybe Anders had gotten his problem sorted on his own. Considering how many people wanted Hawke to do the sorting, that would be a pleasant change.

As he got closer, he recognized Fenris' low tones interspersed with Anders' murmur. No sounds of argument, so apparently they were getting on just then. Hawke grinned to himself, a quip already on his lips as he caught the door frame with a hand and swung into the room ready to give his friends a bit of affectionate teasing.

Fenris was curled up in Anders' lap with a look of pure rapture on his face while Anders combed his fingers through his hair and stroked his cheeks and forehead with his other hand. Weird, but not as weird as the conversation he'd interrupted.

For one thing, Anders was crooning, "I love you so much. Who's a good kitty?"

Weird, but weirder was Fenris practically purring, "I'm a good kitty. Don't stop. I'm the best kitty."

Hawke froze there in the doorway, mouth open, while he did a quick mental inventory to assure himself that he wasn't dreaming, hadn't recently been fighting blood mages, and probably hadn't fallen head first into a rock.

"Hey Hawke," Isabela called from the head of the stairs. "What happened to your bathroom door?"


	5. Chapter 5

Hawke was still frozen in the door, stupefied, when Fenris blinked his eyes open. He was feeling lazy and was more than halfway to an utterly atypical contentment when the tableau made its way past his nap haze to where he could properly appreciate what he was seeing.

As much as he and the rest of Kirkwall liked to think of Hawke as being on top of things all the time, he couldn't say this was the first time he'd seen his friend staring slack-jawed at something. As Varric would say, you saw some crazy shit in the City of Chains. It was, however, the first time he'd seen Anders caught mid-canoodle with the body that was rightfully Fenris'. He knew what Anders' guilt face looked like, and he was definitely wearing it.

Fenris' face – his actual face, and not the furry one he was currently stuck with – wore no such expression. Ser Pounce-a-lot's stare challenged Hawke to say anything, Hawke gaped at Anders and Pounce, Anders caught sight of Fenris as he rose from his place by the fire and winced, and Fenris?

He strolled over and swiped Anders' leg just above his boot with his claws before he even knew the impulse was coming. Napping? Scratching? What next? Licking himself?

He needed to get out of this body before he found out what his own ass tasted like. Technically, Ser Pounce-a-lot's ass, but he wasn't thinking technically just then.

"Hawke," Anders said, while he tried unsuccessfully to dislodge Ser Pounce-a-lot from his lap. "It's not what it looks like." He pushed at Ser Pounce-a-lot and Ser Pounce-a-lot doggedly – correction, determinedly – refused to move, using Fenris' muscles to win the contest.

"I mean it is what it looks like, but not exactly," Anders finished, still trying to unwind arms from around his neck and maybe salvage some whisper of his dignity.

Why bother, Fenris thought. All their friends knew any one of them was one maleficar away from running naked through Hightown.

He meowed irritably up at Anders and Ser Pounce-a-lot until they ceased their power struggle and Ser Pounce-a-lot untangled himself from Anders and stood up. Something about his manner as he did so proclaimed that he was only doing it because it was his idea, and not because some cat had meowed at him.

"All right." Hawke folded his arms and attempted to look stern, but they all knew that the next thing out of his mouth other than a laugh was going to be at Anders' and Fenris' expense. "Are you two sure you want to give Sandal any ideas? He might take your little role play thing seriously, and then where would you end up? Enchanted?"

Right where they were, Hawke.

"Right where we are!" Anders said, almost as though he was reading Fenris' mind.

He indicated Fenris' body. "This is Ser Pounce-a-lot, and that––" He pointed down at Fenris in Ser Pounce-a-lot's body. "-is Fenris!"

"What?" Isabela hooked an arm around Hawke's waist and leaned into the room. "What did I just hear?"

Hawke shook his head. "Either these two are taking role play a little too seriously, or you should run down to the Hanged Man to get Varric. He will never forgive me if he misses out on seeing Fenris meow."

Fenris growled at Hawke and lashed his tail, but all that did was bring Isabela into the room to kneel in front of him, cooing as she reached out as though to pick him up.

He backed away, but she kept coming until he had nowhere else to go but into the fire.

"Isabela," Anders cautioned. "I wouldn't do that."

"Do it," Ser Pounce-a-lot said, flopping down on the chair that Anders had vacated. He swung his legs over one arm and leaned his head back against the other. "He's giving my claws a workout."

Fenris was willing to add Isabela to the list of wound bearers. He readied himself to lash out at her outstretched hand, then stopped, whiskers twitching as she left her hand a few inches away from his face, clearly waiting for him to come to her.

What was that smell?

Okay, yes, he almost certainly knew what that smell was and definitely shouldn't want to get any closer to it, but it was so nuanced, so rich, so…

He stepped forward until his nose almost touched her fingers, opened his mouth, breathed in, and suddenly he was drenched in information that he'd never dreamed of when he'd been an elf. Yes, he could smell exactly which sex acts Isabela and Hawke had indulged in in the past few hours, but he could also smell how Isabela… not exactly felt, but definitely how she responded to Hawke.

He didn't have much experience at this, but if he had to take a guess, he'd say that she loved him.

"What?" Isabela protested. "Do I smell that bad?"

Fenris' ears twitched as he pulled himself out of that strange bout of sensory overload and took a step back.

"He's making a face like he just stuck his nose in a Darktown sewer," she said, taking her hand back while Ser Pounce-a-lot gave a hissing snort of laughter that sounded entirely unlike any laugh of Fenris'.

"You don't smell bad," Pounce told her, then wrinkled his nose. "Maybe you do, but that's not what that face means. You humans and elves only smell with your noses. It's pathetic."

How sad was it that Fenris needed a cat to interpret for him?

He wiped his face on his shoulder and circled around Isabela to make another attempt at jumping up, this time onto Ser Pounce-a-lot. There were claws involved and a yelp of complaint from his body's current resident, but he managed to get onto the chair, and from there onto the chair back to be able to look at the humans on something closer to eye level.

"Are you really Fenris?" Hawke asked, finding his tongue while Isabela rose from the floor and paced around the chair, eyes fixed on Fenris. "One meow for yes, two for no."

"Why would he meow twice if it was no?" Anders asked. "It's Fenris. He's in my cat's body, Hawke. That's what we thought was more important than Isabela's knot tying practice."

"Nobody died or caught fire," Hawke said reasonably. "And those were some very nice knots."

Isabela chuckled and reached out to pet Fenris, only to snatch her fingers back before he could catch her with a claw swipe. The last thing he wanted was for her to rub that smell all over his fur.

Wait… was that how Ser Pounce-a-lot felt about them when they let him back into the bedroom after their version of knot tying practice?

What did he smell on them beyond just sex?

He looked down at Ser Pounce-a-lot and met his own eyes looking up at him. He didn't always look that smug, did he? That had to be the cat.

"Did he give you the figurine?"

Hawke's question pulled him back to the conversation going on without his direct contributions. Anders frowned and shook his head. "What figurine?"

"A carved cat we found in a desire demon's loot. He said you'd love it and that he was going to bring it home for you."

Fenris meowed loudly. That wasn't how it had happened!

"I told him that you never can tell with demons," Hawke went on, smirking at Fenris.

Oh, he was going to get back at Hawke for this. He would pee on everything the man loved, and he might even wait until he was in his own body to do it. He meowed again and Hawke's smirk turned to a grin.

"I bet you a sovereign that we can sort this with that statue."

"It's in my room," Ser Pounce-a-lot said, still lounging across the chair. "Go find it."

"Where is it?" Hawke straightened, already turning to leave. "No, come on, show me."

Ser Pounce-a-lot heaved a sigh and dropped his feet to the floor with a thud. "I don't know why I have to do it."

"Because you can say more than meow," Isabela said, catching his arm to steer him toward the door. "Let's go. The sooner we get this taken care of, the sooner Varric can turn this into his next story."

Hawke and Isabela chivvied Ser Pounce-a-lot out the door, leaving Anders with Fenris. "I could carry you," Anders said cautiously.

He reached out a hand to Fenris and stopped when Fenris sniffed his fingertips and pulled his head back to stare at him while his lip curled back in something that would have read as disgust on his usual face.

"What? Do I smell that bad?"


	6. Chapter 6

Sandal was the hero of the day. Who better to deal with an enchanted figurine than the savant of enchantment?

In the time it took for Sandal to undo what had been done to Fenris and Ser Pounce-a-lot, Anders was able to find a runner willing to fetch the fussiest of fussy Orlesian pastries and return with it in one piece. It emptied his pockets of coin, what little he ever had, but it was a price well paid to have his cat and his Fenris back as they were meant to be.

Hawke had taken the neutralized (they hoped) figurine with him when he and Isabela went to barter the day into a night on Varric's tab at the Hanged Man. Bodahn and Sandal were at the kitchen table, sharing the pastry with Orana.

Ser Pounce-a-lot had taken up his rightful place sitting on Brutal's back and was fastidiously licking every bit of himself he could reach while the mabari resignedly lay still with his head resting on his paws.

All was right in the Hawke estate.

And the apostate Grey Warden and the lyrium warrior?

What was the point of being a mage with the elements at your fingertips if you couldn't parlay that into a steaming hot bath whenever you could get a little free time, a lot of water, and an attractive man willing to get naked with you?

Anders sank down in the water, groaning with unabashed pleasure, while Fenris wrapped his arms around Anders' torso and pulled him into place with his back against Fenris' chest. It wasn't a huge tub, but it was big enough for two people who didn't mind being very close, and tonight it was clear that neither of them minded.

He went with the pull and leaned his head back against Fenris' shoulder. "I'm sorry I locked you in the bathroom."

"You should be," Fenris said, but for a wonder, he sounded more amused than angry. "How could it have taken you so long to realize that something was wrong? In what world do I hide under the bed?"

"It all happened so quickly," Anders protested. "I was just trying to minimize the bloodshed before I asked questions." He flicked a few droplets of water over his shoulder without looking to see if he was even aiming at Fenris' face or not. "You were terrible at being a cat, by the way. Where was the feline grace when you were falling off the bed?"

There were serious matters still to address, but this was too nice to ruin just then. How often did they do this? Never. Anders was going to be selfish and enjoy it just a little longer.

Fenris' retaliation for the flicked water was a nip to Anders' earlobe that wasn't going to do a thing to keep him from doing it again. Especially not when he kept his lips by Anders' ear and murmured, "You try it sometime and tell me."

Anders gave a happy shiver. "Keep doing that and I just might."

Fenris snorted and slid lower to lean his head back against the lip of the tub. "The way you dote on that cat, it wouldn't surprise me if you did."

"I always told you that Ser Pounce-a-lot was special. It's not just every cat who could have handled what happened today."

"He would have had me eating raw pigeon if he'd been able to catch one."

Anders chuckled at the thought of Fenris with a pigeon hanging out of his mouth. "He's been a cat his whole life. I guess some things are hard to shake."

"Hn." Fenris rolled his head from side to side, denying something. "I have not been a cat my whole life, but the body almost had a mind of its own. I didn't choose to move my tail or to be so distracted by certain odors."

"You mean Isabela? What does knot tying smell like?"

"Like you would expect." For a long moment, neither of them said anything before Fenris abruptly asked, "Do you think she loves Hawke?"

"Hm?" Anders craned his neck to see Fenris' expression, but it was closed off and Fenris wouldn't meet his eyes. "Do I think Isabela loves Hawke?"

He let Justice puzzle over the tangent while he gave the question itself serious consideration. Did she? Could she?

"She has a ship of her own again, but she's still in Kirkwall. If that isn't love for her, I don't know what is." He waited for some response from Fenris, and when he didn't get one, he asked, "Why?"

He wasn't sure Fenris was going to answer him, but eventually Fenris said, "It was something I smelled on her. I'm not a cat, how can I know that she smelled like she was in love?"

"How does Ser Pounce-a-lot know how to speak the common tongue?" Anders asked. "If you think she smelled like love, maybe you were right."

Was that the right answer?

Fenris' closed expression broke into a smile that tied a knot of yearning behind Anders' sternum. What would he give to see that smile every day? Who would he kill if they threatened to take Fenris away? He would give anything and kill anyone, and there was no corner of his mind where that seemed wrong.

How far they'd come from that inn room in Amaranthine when he had Fenris had been chained together and still refused to share a bath. How far they'd come from a night in the Hanged Man when Anders had begged to be touched and Fenris had denied him because it wasn't the right time.

He gently caught one of Fenris' wrists and used his hold to raise his hand and press a kiss on his palm, carefully avoiding the lines of lyrium there. How far they'd come, and now, as much as he loved seeing Fenris smile, they were going back to a summer night in the Lowerdark.

"How bad is the pain in your hip?"

Fenris stiffened, and Anders' gentle hold on his wrist firmed just enough to keep his hand there a moment longer.

"It is nothing."

He kissed Fenris' palm again and released him. Fenris wasn't exactly a captive audience, but the water was still hot and they were still naked, and up until a sentence ago, they'd been having a nice time after a long, trying day. He was hoping Fenris would stay.

"Ser Pounce-a-lot told me that you're in pain and that your hip is the worst. How bad is it?" He lightly brushed his fingertips along an unmarked part of Fenris' leg. "You do have a healer at your beck and call, why not take advantage of me?"

It was a pity the context didn't allow for innuendo.

"Because there is nothing you can do." Anders knew those clipped tones – Fenris was not happy with the direction their conversation was taking.

"You don't know that."

He should tell Fenris that Danarius had told him the marks required maintenance. He should have told Fenris the minute he'd been rescued from Danarius' blighted chair, but even now, the thought of talking about that time turned his tongue to lead.

He straightened up and braced himself on the sides of the tub while he twisted and sloshed water onto the floor and managed to get himself turned around, kneeling between Fenris' legs. "What's wrong with your hip is my fault. Just tell me you'll let me try to find a way to fix it."

Fenris shook his head. "It isn't your––"

Anders took the most direct route to cutting off that line of bullshit before Fenris could say it wasn't his fault. He lunged forward and caught him with a kiss, breathing the word in and refusing to let it go while Fenris decided whether to pull him in or push him away.

It could have gone either way when Fenris' hands settled on his shoulders. They'd come a long way, but how far?

Far enough that when Fenris did push, he did it only lightly, and only after he had stolen Anders' breath away in turn. He pushed just enough to be able to look him in the eye and hold his gaze.

Isabela was right, Anders thought, not for the first time, Fenris really did have pretty eyes.

"I'll say yes if you answer one question." Anders nodded without taking his eyes off of Fenris. "Do you love me?"

"I–– uh…" He blinked and licked his lips. "What?"

"Isabela wasn't the only person I smelled today." Fenris gave Anders' shoulders a little shake. "Do you love me?"

First Pounce calling Fenris his boyfriend and now this? Maybe he should try being a cat for a while. Maybe he'd understand the elf for a change.

His throat bobbed as he swallowed around the lump that had lodged itself there.

"Anders…"

"Yes."

"Yes."


End file.
